The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating continuous webs of panels or sheets (hereinafter called panels) which are made of paper or other foldable material. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for subdividing a continuous running web of panels in zig-zag formation subsequent to accumulation of panels into piles or stacks.
It is customary to arrange freshly imprinted panels, which issue from a machine for imprinting information (e.g., of the type to be found on forms) on a continuous web of paper or the like and which together form a continuous web of panels, in zig-zag formation with fold lines between them and to gather the advancing panels into a succession of piles or stacks each of which contains a predetermined number of panels. A fully grown pile must be separated from the next-following panel, i.e., from the foremost panel of the remainder of the running web. As a rule, the last panel of a fully assembled pile or stack, or the foremost panel of the web behind a fully grown stack, is provided with a colored indicium which is applied by a suitable marking tool in the form of a pencil or pen receiving impulses from the printing machine at intervals which are required to gather a predetermined number of panels, e.g., a ream of 500 panels. Each fully grown stack is manually separated from the next-following panel of the web at the locus of the respective colored indicium. This is a time-consuming operation and, therefore, the severing or separating station constitutes a bottleneck which prevents the printing machine from operating at full speed and which also necessitates a relatively slow operation of the next-following machine, such as a machine wherein successive reams of stacked panels are confined in boxes, in sheets of wrapping material or the like. Losses in output are especially high if the printing machine is a multi-row machine.